I love California and I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else but the beach. I was Born and raised here but even the wealthiest are leaving (I’m by no means wealthy) because the costs are becoming damn near astronomical. My wife is from Guam but most of her family live between Guam, Lexington and N. Carolina. We have been seriously considering moving to Guam with Kentucky being our second choice. The only thing that’s really keeping us is that we moved my mother closer to us and with her being 80, it would be difficult
Gotta take care of your Mom, so I can respect and understand that.
I don't know much about Kentucky, but the company I used to work for merged with a larger one, and then was eventually fully bought out by them. One of the main guys they brought in was from Louisville, KY and as often occurs, he brought a few of his pals with him.
They all said that is was very comparable to where we're at. So much so, that they refused to move like they promised when offered the position by arguing that they could fly back and forth, and work remotely without uprooting their family to a place that was pretty much the same, but without the annoying accents. Eventually that led to their demise.
The point is that they all spoke highly of that city, and that is was very similar regarding lifestyle, cost of goods, groceries, entertainment, and home costs (which I gave you an example of earlier). Also, there a lot of high paying banking and payment processing industry jobs around that area....so while you likely wouldn't be able to charge what you do in Cali, you'd have plenty of clients with cash to spend, and still be close to some major schools and Indianapolis for pro athletes too.....plus the Combine is there as you well know. If that's you're second choice anyway, and you want to keep prospering from what you currently do, I'd suggest looking into it more as it would likely bump KY to your 1st choice.
If the time comes you decide you're done with Cali, I hope that is somewhat helpful to you.